Diwali always seems to come at the right time; I suppose this says something about the wisdom of ancient religious calendars and living in sync with the cycles of the moon. Initially, Diwali felt “early” to me this year–at least in part due to the unseasonably warm weather of Houston’s mid-October–the holiday did its job as always, serving as a point of reflection and an opportunity to regroup and start again.

For some time, I’ve gone back-and-forth about the viability of this blog; I post so infrequently these days, my life very different from when I began this project in 2009.

I am a parent now, of course. And for the past year-and-a-half, I’ve been intently focused on a book project, which will come to fruition next year. I still cook a lot, but the nature of that cooking has changed–gone are the days of elaborate, “just for the heck of it” recipes that require a trip to the specialty store for ingredients. Instead, I am all about the weekly meal plans, prepping weeknight dinners in advance, stocking the freezer with casserole, pastas, or enchiladas whenever I can. Most of my writing isn’t about food anymore.

At the same time, I know that many of my friends and acquaintances come to the blog to search for recipes, which makes me grin. In truth, I often cook out of my archives, too; I don’t want this site to go anywhere. I plan to maintain it, just not to update it anymore. This will be my last post.

I’m proud of this blog and forever grateful for all of the doors it opened for me, especially the connections and friendships I made because of it. But the time has come for something new, for transitioning into the next thing, scary and exciting as that is. I’ve got the very beginnings of a new website, which I intend to use as a platform to share not-necessarily-food-related writing and provide updates about the work I’m doing, including my new book and the occasional writing course. I’ll be posting about the first course in the coming week, so, if you’re interested, you can sign up for my mailing list here.

Like most changes, this one feels bittersweet. I can’t help but think about my students, seniors all on the precipice of major transitions, edgy with the thrill and the fear contained therein. It’s easy for me to speak to them about the importance of risk, the necessity of moving outside of a comfort zone–but it’s humbling and essential for me to stand inside this space and be viscerally reminded of what that feels like.

Thank you all, for being here and for reading. I’ll miss this little blog.

***

DIWALI 2017

Wouldn’t seem right unless I shared a few of the most popular recipes from this year’s festivities:

Naan pizzas – I buy mini-naans at Costco and use them as crust. Since they’re small, I can cook them in batches on a baking sheet and serve them warm. They are crazy-popular, and this year, I made two variations:

Butternut squash & chicken: in lieu of “sauce,” I mashed up Indian-style sweet-and-sour butternut squash, then layered it with shredded mozzarella and handfuls of diced chicken which I’d made ahead using leftovers from this recipe. Once the pizzas came out of the oven, I showered them with fresh, chopped cilantro.

Saag paneer: having cooked the greens and paneer separately, I used the saag as “sauce,” topped with shredded mozzarella and also a few cubes of paneer. Once these came out of the oven, they got a drizzle of cilantro chutney.

Even though this party was basically a happy hour situation, I still decided to make four desserts, because of course I did:

Chai snickerdoodles – I skipped the frosting, which seemed like a bit much. I’d do it again, because these were delightful and disappeared quickly!

Mango tartlets – phyllo shells have become my fancy-dessert- secret-weapon. I’ve filled them in the past with Tartine’s lemon cream, this key lime curd, and this time, with Smitten Kitchen’s mango curd. Find the phyllo shells in the freezer section at the grocery store, crisp them up in the oven, then fill them with something delicious. People will rave, guaranteed.

Pear galette – Stella Parks has never, ever steered me wrong (if you enjoy baking, you should buy her new book!) and this recipe is no exception. It was so good that I’m planning to make it again for Thanksgiving.

Saffron pistachio financiers – while these tasted great, they were a pain to remove from the pans after baking, so I’ll use liners next time.

Jill makes things grow; it’s what she does. After a few hours digging around in the dirt, she comes in more vibrant (if smelly). From plumerias to eggplant, she’s happier when she’s growing something, more like herself. She comes by this honestly—raised by two people whose backyard garden was massive, beautifully orchestrated, and ridiculously prolific—she’s now raising Shiv to understand, enjoy, and appreciate how food is grown.

I do not make things grow; instead, I try not to kill them when Jill is out of town. But I fit into this equation nicely, as someone who loves to spend lots of weekend time in the kitchen, figuring out what we should do with a counter piled high with tomatoes and a crisper full of homegrown zucchini & squash. There’s nothing lovelier than being able to walk out to the back patio (or send Shiv!) to grab a handful of mint, or basil, or oregano to toss into whatever’s cooking. And it’s especially gratifying to serve up a meal comprised primarily of ingredients that came from our own backyard.

Since the school year is winding down and the summer winding up, I thought I would share some of my family’s favorite ways to enjoy backyard tomatoes (other than sliced onto a mayo-slathered piece of good bread and topped with salt & pepper, of course). Jill is not a big fan of tomato-based sauces, so I’ve found other ways of using up the bounty. I hope you’ll enjoy these as much as we do.

Favorite tomato recipes from this blog—

Corn & Tomato Pie – it’s high time for me to make the first of these for 2017; this is one of those beloved favorites that makes an excellent summer meal, paired simply with a salad and some dessert. Take it to a potluck, make one for friends who just had a baby, etc.

Indian-Style Tomato Rice—I have fond memories of my mom packing this for me in my lunchbox. Simple but flavorful, keep a batch of this in the fridge and serve on its own, with plain yogurt, or use it as a bed for kabobs or other grilled meats.

Tomato Bread Pudding—this decadent recipe is another one I need to revisit. The perfect dish for a summer brunch, you could certainly switch up the cheeses (Fontina is delicious but $$); just make sure to choose a hard cheese that shreds and melts nicely.

Favorite tomato recipes from elsewhere—

A Diary of Tomatoes: 5 Recipes {via Casa Yellow}
I’ve made all of the recipes in this beautiful booklet from my friend Sarah; no one knows how to handle excess garden bounty better! Her tomato jam is an especially great way to consolidate & preserve your harvest; it’s perfect for all of those hamburgers you’ll be grilling this summer.

Fresh Tomato Tarts {via King Arthur Flour}
This crust recipe is one that I keep in my back pocket, pulling it out when I want to impress people but don’t have the bandwidth to do anything super-laborious. I tend to make the smaller tarts, adding fresh herbs like oregano and basil to the tomatoes before baking.

Pasta Salad with Roasted Tomatoes {via Smitten Kitchen}
I remembered this recipe over the weekend, when the kitchen counter was beginning to be crowded with beautiful yellow-grape and red-cherry tomatoes. Thanks to a recent deal on pine nuts at Trader Joe’s and the gift of feta from our favorite goat farmers, I had everything I needed on hand to make this. I love that the recipe makes a big batch—another great potluck recipe, or something to keep on hand to pack in lunches, whip out when your kid is hungry after swimming for two hours solid, etc.

Ratatouille {via Saveur}
My favorite ratatouille recipe because it’s so hands-off; other than prepping vegetables, the oven does the work here for you. The result is tender and deeply flavorful; you can use it as a sandwich topping, paired with some good cheese, or serve atop couscous for a healthy side.

This past Friday was Maha Shivaratri, a holiday especially meaningful to my family since our boy is named for Lord Shiva. My mom and I spent the day fasting, a practice that has grown more and more potent for me as I’ve gotten older. I have a greater respect for discipline than I used to, a greater understanding of what it can accomplish. Discipline, now, is as much about affirmation as it is about denial.

I broke my fast in the evening, after we had performed puja as a family. With my right hand working to portion bites of my mom’s famous aloo parantha, I told Shiv my favorite of the stories associated with Maha Shivaratri. The basic scenario is this: the gods were weak as the result of a curse, and in order to be strengthened, sought out amrita, or nectar of life, which could only found at the bottom of the ocean. Given their weakness, the gods had no choice but to partner with the demons in order to harness adequate power for churning the ocean, the only way to access the nectar.

This part gets complicated, but during the extended retrieval process, an extremely deadly poison emerges—a familiar mythological trope, right? Before you get to the awesome thing you’ve been working so hard for, something super-dangerous comes along. In this case, the poison was so intensely harmful that it threatened to wipe out the already-weakened gods, to say nothing of potentially destroying all of humanity.

Enter Shiva. He agrees to drink the poison, but holds it in his throat, offering it a container and keeping it from harming others. Ultimately—and some versions of the story attribute this to the efforts of his wife, Parvati, or the other gods—the poison also does not harm Shiva, though it does turn his neck (or, in some stories, his whole body) blue.

You can do a lot with this story. I am particularly drawn to the notion that poisonous things cannot necessarily be dispensed with altogether, but that sometimes we have to make room for them. I am inspired by the thought that we can render harmful things harmless by offering them a place inside our own vast capability. In debriefing the story with Shiv, we talked about sacrifice, that it is sometimes necessary to do difficult things for the benefit of others, that Shiva’s actions can inspire all of us to be strong when the time comes to do the right thing.

Earlier in the day, at the Jewish school where I work, our Head of School gave a beautiful d’var torah about that oft-quoted verse from Exodus: “You shall neither wrong a stranger, nor oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” It’s not unusual for the week’s parsha (text selection) to feel relevant—indeed that is the point of revisiting the text year after year, to connect it to our lives—but wow. This one. Timely.

Tomorrow, Lent begins, another layer of the multi-faceted traditions that make up my personal spiritual life. It’s a season all about sacrifice and discipline, and I welcome its structure each year, but perhaps no more so than I will now, when so much feels uncertain.

On Friday night, as I got him ready for bed, Shiv took his allergy medicine, as usual, then made a funny face, holding his lips together and puffing out his cheeks. “I was tryna hold it in my throat and be strong,” he told me after he’d swallowed it. “Like Lord Shiva.”

SISTER BARBARA’S TUNA JAMBALAYA

Some folks seek out more fish recipes for Lent, so I thought it would be a good time to share this recipe for one of our family’s “old reliables.” Not necessarily the most attractive or showy dish, but it sure is comforting and simple to make. I learned the recipe a long time ago from one of those old-fashioned, Southern, comb-bound cookbooks to which Sister Barbara, whoever she may be, contributed.

I lost the official recipe a while back, but I still know how to make this dish from muscle memory; this is very much a “pantry” dinner, or a “what should I make for dinner?” dinner, provided you’ve grabbed a green bell pepper from the store and always keep celery in your crisper like I do.

ingredients:

None of these measurements are precise/exact; feel free to tinker based on what you have.

Melt a knob of butter (or heat up 1-2 T oil) in a large saute pan over medium heat. Cook the trinity (onion + bell pepper + celery) until soft, about 5 minutes. Season with a bit of salt and pepper, then add a bit more butter before stirring in the rice, cooking it for 1-2 minutes. Pour in the stock, then stir in the tuna. Season again—a few generous shakes of creole seasoning, and perhaps a bit more salt.

Cover the pan with a lid to let the mixture come to a boil; check after a few minutes and turn the heat down as needed, replacing the lid. Cook until the liquid has been absorbed and the rice is fully cooked.* Taste and adjust seasoning as needed. Serve & enjoy!

*If your rice is fully cooked but you have more liquid than you want, remove the lid for the remainder of the cooking process. If you’re out of liquid but your rice is still undercooked, add a bit more stock and re-cover the pan.

Grief does not work the same for everyone, but to anyone who’s experienced it, it’s universally recognizable. I know grief when I see it, and I see it in this moment. In the woman who caught my eye in the dressing room at the gym as we both looked away from TV coverage of you-know-what; in the texts between friends to share the acts of resistance and solidarity we have planned for the next 48 hours; in the deep exhalation of my mother’s breath as she hugged me goodnight.

This is my frame of reference, of course; there are lots of people who aren’t grieving, who are celebrating instead, because that’s how ideologies run: two ways. There are those who are “waiting and seeing,” those whose personal issues are so real and primary and in-your-face urgent that they can’t see or be concerned with anything else. I get that.

It’s complicated, and nuance matters more than ever; I know that there are legitimate concerns about the leadership and language and inclusivity of Saturday’s protest efforts; I know that there are many groups of people for whom this grief is old hat, who view these sudden and dramatic showings of outrage as privileged and lacking in self-awareness. I know that demonizing and painting with a broad brush, no matter which side is doing it, is dangerous.

But I’ve been listening to the voices who seem the wisest, both past and present; those who have stood inside of resistance for their entire lives, who have things to teach me and all of us who are interested in learning, who can offer some direction when many of us feel unmoored. Here’s one thing they all seem to agree on: calling things by their proper names.

I may lose some of you with this example, but hear me out. In the Harry Potter series, Lord Voldemort—the power-hungry villain—is commonly referred to as “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.” In the first book of the series, Dumbledore, Harry’s mentor, instructs him otherwise:

“Call him Voldemort, Harry. Always use the proper name for things. Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself.”

That’s one thing we can do. Stop equivocating things that aren’t equivalent. Stop using euphemisms because we’re scared of the truth. Stop wishing our way into cheap optimism.

We are so obsessed with positivity in this culture, to the point that we have and continue to erase narratives of whole swaths of people and refuse to make room for facts that don’t fit inside of our relentlessly cheery outlook. That is part of how we got here, and we have to stop. According to Vincent Harding, and I’m pretty sure he knew, “What is needed is more and more people to stand in the darkness.”

The other thing that I think I’ve learned—and this will seem contradictory, but I find that paradox is usually where the truth of human experience is located—hope is essential. An insistence on joy: not as a blind looking-away, but as a choice. Call the dystopian clown show what it is, then refuse to let it grind you down. Resist the bullshit narratives that want to cocoon you in fear, then go make some art. Let yourself be outraged by that which should generate outrage, even if it happens over and over and over again. Write down what you value, what you believe in—do it right now—so that you will not be normalized into someone your grief wouldn’t recognize. Create community around those values, if you haven’t already, or find one to join. Remember that you are capable of great kindness, and that, while it may not seem like it, care for the self and care for the other is a radical act.

Grief is often monstrous, consuming. But it can also be a teacher. If we’re willing, it can show us that we are all braver than we think.